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Commissioner Bud Selig, who was criticized for doing little to push mandatory drug testing, indicated he might take disciplinary action.

By BILL PENNINGTON

The way an old, reliable relative never misses a family function, Bud Selig has always been there for baseball. As a longtime fan of the game, a team owner and, eventually, as the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Selig has shown his plain, Midwestern face at every notable low and high moment of the game for several decades.

It has brought him scorn when he was blamed for caustic work stoppages and ridicule when he halted an All-Star Game. And it has brought him satisfaction as he presided over baseball’s unforeseen turn-of-the-century renaissance.

But there was no moment quite like Thursday, when the 73-year-old Selig stepped to the rostrum at a Manhattan hotel amid one of baseball’s most troublesome days. He was there to confront a situation that in every estimation he had set in motion.

There may be much disagreement over whether Selig and baseball’s owners could have done more to prevent the steroids era that was so forcefully depicted in the report released Thursday by George J. Mitchell, the former federal prosecutor and United States senator. But there is no question the report would not have occurred unless Selig had ordered Mitchell to investigate baseball’s steroid problem 20 months ago.

On Thursday, the man who sought that outside investigation against the advice of his confidants appeared saddened, proud and perhaps most strangely, invigorated.

Although he began speaking in soft, grandfatherly tones as he talked of mistakes made and the game’s integrity, Selig quickly went into an almost prosecutorial mode.

“This report is a call to action,” he said, raising his right index finger. “And I will act.”

Selig was widely criticized for doing little to push for mandatory drug testing 10 years ago and was mildly chided for it by Mitchell on Thursday. He not only accepted the findings and recommendations of Mitchell’s report, but also said he wanted to go beyond them.

While Mitchell recommended against punishment for players linked to performance-enhancing drugs, Selig mentioned disciplinary actions and pledged swift action. When it came to Mitchell’s proposed changes, Selig announced that he would immediately enact every one that did not require approval from the players’ union. For example, Selig said, teams would no longer be given 24 hours’ notice of a drug test.

Selig vowed to fight to find an easier way to detect human growth hormone, calling for a summit of doctors and researchers to discuss the subject.

“So long as there might be potential cheaters in the game, we have to constantly update what we do to catch them,” he said. “And that’s exactly what I intend to do. We will not rest.”

Selig was, as usual, dressed conservatively, wearing a drab sport coat, white shirt and solid tie, but much of the rest of him seemed refashioned.

For more than a year, he said he was not worried about what the Mitchell report would reveal. He conceded Thursday that he wished he was not discussing the use of performance-enhancing drugs by dozens of players, although he did not seem overly distressed by it. He was busy looking forward, promising to strengthen baseball’s diligence and vigorously calling for the players’ union to cooperate with him.

It was as if the kindly old relative we all knew for decades stood up during Thanksgiving dinner and announced that he never did like turkey and was leading a revolt to cook a ham next year. Selig would not even refer to the day as disappointing.

“Do I believe it’s a setback?” he asked. “No. The sport will be better off.”

Selig stayed true to form in some ways. He did not fall on his sword, but he did not pick it up and renew the fight. His foremost skill as a baseball administrator has always been a kind of coy, homespun conciliation. Selig did not quarrel when asked if he believed baseball’s leaders might have been able to avert the wrongdoing described in Mitchell’s report had they been more focused on it, instead of on economic issues, as was alleged by Mitchell.

“People have different ideas about what happened a decade or two decades ago,” he said. “Hindsight is wonderful. But George Mitchell is right: it’s time to move on.”

And so, one of baseball’s most recognizable faces appeared again and survived Day 1 of a new and ugly chapter for the game. Whether Bud Selig has taken the first step toward redrafting his legacy may depend on how the baseball community responds to his bold call to action.

“Anybody who knows me well has to know that this is not something I wish had happened, but it has,” Selig said. “And I have to do something about it. I cannot say it any more plainly. I have to do something.”